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60 RMYC YEARBOOK
Days passed; I have no memor y of how many. Finally
we realised that we could dawdle no longer as the
need to return to work was growing. We untied for
the last time and chugged off, pushing the throttle
up to maybe three knots instead of our usual two.
The morning passed in a light of infinite softness.
Mid-afternoon we spotted a signboard on the
nor thern bank. We had no binoculars on board,
which proved to be our undoing.The board was
hard to read. We got closer and closer. One second
before the lettering became legible we slid onto
the mud. No problem; into reverse and off. But she
wouldn’t budge. Only now we could read the sign.
It said something like, ‘This marks the access to the
spillway for a power station cooling system. Don’t
get too close as the water level drops near the
spillway when the sluice gates are open’. And the
sluice gates were obviously open. What it could have
said was ‘If you can read this you’re in trouble’.
Mr Gardner had had an easy time so far but
now we had to call for a bit of muscle. We tried
ever ything we knew, but no luck. On deck was a
varnished spar, perhaps a shor t mast for a steadying
sail. We lashed it athwar tships and crawled out along
it, as sailors do when swinging from the boom of a
grounded yacht. Nothing worked.The water level
continued to drop, the mud continued to churn
around the keel and we sat fast.
After a cup of tea and a few drams of Hamish’s
finest we reached the only conclusion – as there
was no dinghy someone would have to swim for
it. It was early in the season and we hadn’t seen
another boat for days.
The bloke who drew the shor t straw was about to
lower himself into the freezing canal – it was around
Easter time, I think, and the weather was still cold
–
when around the next bend came a craft that
looked, at first sight, like an ocean liner. We waved,
we shouted, he stopped.The craft was huge and
turned out to be an oceangoing trawler. The crew
threw us a line, the trawler’s big screw bit hard into
the water, turned two or three mighty revolutions
and we were yanked clear. I remember thinking that
the entire stern of our lightly-built craft, ancient even
then, could have been yanked off.
NESS IS MORE
TOP LEFT: Caledonian Canal
BOTTOM LEFT: Cyclists on towpath and boats on canal.
Photo courtesy of Peter Sandground.
TOP RIGHT: The Falkirk Wheel from the top.
Photo courtesy of Peter Sandground.
BOTTOM RIGHT: Glen Tarsan and Castle Urquart
60 RMYC YEARBOOK